skullgiver
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
Verified icon Giver of skulls
- Comment on If the EU uses online signature for European Citizen's Initiative, why isn't voting online for elections or policies not allowed? 6 days ago:
As a counter argument: some countries (like the USA) accept mass mail-in voting, which has the same downsides as online voting (plus the “ballot took five weeks to reach the next town so your vote didn’t count” problem with an underfunded mail service).
Which isn’t to say digital voting is good, but clearly many people value the easier participation over the verifiability/security of normal voting.
- Comment on Scales that refuse to measure if the battery isn't brand new 2 weeks ago:
I had a scale that kept measuring! It was great! I lost so much weight in the week before the battery finally gave out! Too bad my clothes didn’t get any looser and all that weight came back on when I replaced the battery, but for a short moment in time weight loss became super easy!
- Comment on ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Is the Perfect Show for Trekkies — Now They Need to Watch It 3 months ago:
Huh, TIL SkyShowtime exists. Yet another streaming service, great! I’ll have to consider it when SNW continues.
According to the internet it won’t work on my computer or laptop, though, because unlike Netflix and Disney Plus it doesn’t support Linux apparently? And it doesn’t seem like it’ll work on my phone, either, because I’ve had to flash a custom ROM onto that after Xiaomi dropped support a few years ago. Guess I’ll have to try a free trial.
- Comment on [META] Never change, lemmy.ml 11 months ago:
Criticism of communism on Lemmy is like criticising the far right on Truth Social. Whether or arguments are good or not (“communists are basically nazis” just isn’t true), you’re criticising ideals on a platform mostly set up for people disenfranchised for those ideals.
While I don’t exactly agree with your comment, I find it quite ridiculous that your comment was removed. Just let the downvotes do their job, this didn’t need mod intervention.
It’s quite unfortunate that so many normal people and communities have concentrated on .ml, unlike Lemmygrad you can’t really defederate .ml without missing out on valuable interaction.
- Comment on Its most common use case is interrupting games 1 year ago:
Read the popup dialogue next time. It tells you what Sticky Keys is for and how to disable the trigger if you don’t want it.
Or go to settings > accessibility > sticky keys > “keyboard shortcut for sticky keys”.
- Comment on Its most common use case is interrupting games 1 year ago:
Various diseases and disabilities.
- Comment on This Captcha 1 year ago:
Well, if you misinterpret this question, you’ll probably get the next one. The important thing about these is that you shouldn’t overthink them, they’re not worth the mental effort and they don’t expect serious dedication from you anyway.
- Comment on This Captcha 1 year ago:
The nuance is the entire point of the CAPTCHA. It’s not really hard to go “inside warmer than snowy outside” but I imagine whole groups of neurodivergent people will be getting locked out by these.
- Comment on This Captcha 1 year ago:
This is exactly the type of thing a bot sucks at. Training image recognition or text recognition is trivial. Training concepts such as perceived temperature requires state of the art LLMs.
This isn’t the only question, of course. It’ll stick around until bots are trained for temperature. Then it’ll ask “which of these would make a good picnic spot” or “which of these are big enough to contain an apple”.
- Comment on This Captcha 1 year ago:
To kick out bots. AI can bypass normal CAPTCHAs better than humans can, so “select the traffic light” and “type these letters” won’t work anymore.
Now CAPTCHAs are becoming a test in actual mental capacity.
- Comment on this 1 year ago:
User friendly CAPTCHAs have been defeated. Current technology relies on extensive fingerprinting but if you want to take out bots using that, you’ll also be taking out anyone not on Windows 10+/macOS with GPU drivers installed and no fingerprint resistence.
“Type these letters” is no longer a good filter. Neither is basic math or recognising words. Even these dice games can be done by ChatGPT just fine once you bypass the “I can’t do CAPTCHAs” limitation that they put in front of it.
We used to be able to make CAPTCHAs just slightly more difficult. Add in some colours, blur the edges some more, use different fonts. That’s no longer an option; CAPTCHAs need to be increased in cognitive complexity instead.
This is a huge problem. As AI becomes more advanced, more disabled people will start losing access to services because they can’t get through the CAPTCHAs. Audio transcription AI is becoming more advanced by the month and I expect audio CAPTCHAs to soon become unusable. These more complex puzzles, which AI can’t automatically describe, will also cause sighted and mentally disabled people to lose access. The days of CAPTCHAs are soon over.
I can see three solutions for this, and all of the suck donkeyballs.
One is remote attestation tied to a hardware key (the thing Google tried to add and the thing Apple has added to Safari). Your access will be determined by your possession of real hardware. If someone hacks the manufacturer of your device and steals the keys, your access will soon be revoked. However, this requires bots to buy real devices, which makes them too costly to operate at huge scales. Running Linux or older versions of Windows/macOS will make accessing the internet impossible.
A variant of this is the “apps for everything” outcome, where websites will stop being useful and tell you to install an app instead. Apps can do a lot more (invasive) analysis of your system, and existing DRM solutions should keep most bots out.
Another is to just put pay walls and accounts in front of everything. No spam bot or crawler will pay a dollar for every account they need to create.
The last one is to centralise on a few hosting providers which can use traffic analysis across many websites to determine bot status. No more VPNs, even more websites behind Cloudflare, but simple, accessible CAPTCHAs.
The non-solution is to try and cling to CAPTCHAs. Soon CAPTCHAs will start excluding anyone under some kind of education level that’ll affect a significant portion of the population, but it’ll maintain the status quo for most neurotypical people.
Many websites already employ a combination of these measures, and it’s only going to get worse. For general accessibility and for keeping the internet free and somewhat democratic, I’m putting my money on option one: remote attestation. Hardware trust can be implemented in free operating systems (many people will get huffy about it but I’m sure they’ll prefer it to not being able to use the internet) and older systems will take a hit, but it’s the best of the outcomes I can see.
- Comment on I just want to set a timer for MY FOOD WINDOWS WHY? 1 year ago:
Ignoring the reboot doesn’t work when it’s a reboot to the Nvidia driver, as I’ve found out. The displays will work but Vulkan/OpenGL will break in confusing ways with error messages that point in the wrong direction.
I don’t really understand why more Linux don’t hot replace the kernel, Ubuntu can do it and so can a bunch of enterprise Linux variants. I assume there’s some kind of design limitation that prevents other distros from using that API.
- Comment on I just want to set a timer for MY FOOD WINDOWS WHY? 1 year ago:
These issues are common for people running bleeding edge Linux like me, it’s just something you accept when you use code that was finished a week ago rather than wait for it to be tested for stability for months like most Windows code.
You don’t get that stuff on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora, or course.
- Comment on Stay fresh 1 year ago:
Image A excellent shit post
- Comment on I just want to set a timer for MY FOOD WINDOWS WHY? 1 year ago:
You say that, but Discord will happily refuse to open until you download the latest .deb file from their website, and it’s one of the friendlier Electron applications in terms of in-window updating in my experience.
I had to disable my adblock to get the Teams application to show me a button I needed at some point…
One interesting thing I’ve heard from people I’ve introduced into Linux is that you need to reboot an awful lot. It has to do with automatic security updates triggering a reboot-required flag, but every other day I get a popup with “updates were installed, you should reboot”.
- Comment on I just want to set a timer for MY FOOD WINDOWS WHY? 1 year ago:
I don’t remember any version of Windows I actively use ever auto updating for me either, but that’s because I turned that shit off myself. I had a test VM reboot itself at some point, but it recovered itself perfectly so I only noticed it because the open Firefox tabs all appeared to have unloaded by themselves.
You don’t need to know any programming languages to use Linux, and if you’re a nornal computer user and buy a Mac you don’t need to compile anything either. You’re also free from Microsoft’s stupid advertising and Edge sabotage.
I’ll have you know the reason why my laptop didn’t display over a dock isn’t because of bingbong-SDK, but rather because Linux 6.1 altered a kernel API that evdi 1.14 didn’t support, hence breaking the DisplayLink driver written by Synaptic, thank you very much. But yeah, this stuff does happen occasionally and it sucks. But hey, the problem wasn’t Nvidia’s terrible software for once!
- Comment on How are 144hz screen possible? 1 year ago:
Of course, and that’s why European Youtubers will sometimes upload video in 4k@50fps (because the grid frequency in Europe is 50Hz instead, and that’s what a lot of cameras are configured for to prevent banding).
Syncing with the power grid is one of those great ideas that lead to some very silly side effects, like that time the grid frequency in Europe sagged for a while and everyone’s alarm clocks started drifting. Grid operators increased the frequency slightly over the following months to correct the clocks as well, so if you adjusted your alarm clock you’d need to adjust it again!
- Comment on How are 144hz screen possible? 1 year ago:
The 60 rule is actually based on a 59.97 rule and it’s not really a rule, just a standard that stuck around. What’s better than 60? Two times 60! What’s better than two times 60? Four times sixty!
With VRR you can run certain screens that get sold right now at exactly 91.3 fps if you want, it’s just extremely unpractical.
CRT monitors actually used to run at higher refresh rates (120Hz CRTs came way before anything close to flat panels were introduced) but the shitty limitations of the first ten years of flat panels changed the way displays were used and marketed.
- Comment on Restaurant Bill 1 year ago:
There is no “EU” culture about any of this. Every country has its own culture and acceptable ideas. All I know is that you have to be made aware of any surcharges before they’re applied, but I’m pretty sure things work exactly the same in America.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d find random hospitality surcharges when you walk into a random restaurant in Amsterdam or Paris. What are you going to do, sue the restaurant? Call the cops? As much as I like living here, it’s not like this is some kind of utopia where scummy businesses don’t exist and where the government always enforces customer protection laws everywhere.
- Comment on Restaurant Bill 1 year ago:
I’ve only come across it in ex-Soviet European countries, but every country is different of course. Tourist traps also like adding fees and surcharges but I don’t think they do it for the same reason.
I remember something about tipping bring associated with bribes getting mentioned in a documentary I watched years ago, but i can’t even begin to remember what documentary that was, let alone find a link to it.
- Comment on Restaurant Bill 1 year ago:
I don’t think so, as long as the fee is made clear before getting the bill (e.g. indicated on the menus and signs outside). It’s definitely legal in Europe, assuming you were warned beforehand. It’s very common in some European countries (while entirely nonexistent in others).
In countries where tipping isn’t traditionally acceptable (like in places where it’s associated with bribing), service surcharge often replace the tipping. Charging a service surcharge and then suggesting a tip is ridiculous though.
I simply wouldn’t tip after that surcharge, but then again I’m European.
- Comment on Taking self-appreciation to the next level 1 year ago:
Based on the original article the guy left a trail of destruction. Clearly has no idea how to properly cut or maintain hedges.
The original article mentions at least one address, and based on Streetview from two years ago I don’t get the impression that these people don’t maintain their hedges at all. There are clear signs of work having been done either by people who have been doing so for a while or by some kind of landscaping company.
To me, this looks more like a “bored, grumpy old man destroys peoples’ hedges” story.
- Comment on Taking self-appreciation to the next level 1 year ago:
If you’re going for some kind of moral victory, don’t kill the plant. Go to the council or whatever authority is relevant in your area and force the owners to take care of their shit through legal means. There’s probably some kind of accessibility law you can press to clear the curb of tree branches.
Cutting up random people’s plants is an excellent way to run head first into tree law. Replacing these plants isn’t cheap. The guy did extensive damage to a bunch of hedges with no warning or communication beforehand, and got angry when approached.
If you’re going to risk breaking tree laws, at least don’t put your name and picture in the news.
- Comment on Gonna be a great day! 1 year ago:
I like the idea behind decentralised currency and I value the ideals of those wanting to free themselves from the four or five financial institutions controlling the world, but the people who want to buy groceries with their Bitcoin are a tiny minority. Cryptocurrency has become a vessel for speculation, fraud, and money laundering, abusing the good intentions of its inventors.
During the Bitcoin hype, some online stores actually started taking cryptocurrency as payment, but few stores still have that option available. For a sweet, short period there was a glimpse of hope for cryptocurrency, but that quickly collapsed.
Your first point accentuates that there are too many options to transfer blockchain money for most normal people. Living in a place where payment terminals in supermarkets don’t accept credit cards (debit card based culture) and where banks decided to go with Maestro rather than Mastercard, I can tell you from experience that “you need to pay with a different thing here” will confuse the hell out of people.
Your second point is actually the problem behind cryptocurrency that’ll make it impossible to use as a real currency. There are no control mechanisms, so the value jumps around wildly. You’d be smart to store your money through cryptocurrencies in countries with explosive inflation (Argentina, Turkey) but when a country’s currency starts to collapse, limits to exchanging money are often the first policies to get inflation back under control, so there’s a real risk you’ll end up unable to access your money because banks suddenly refuse to take your return transfer.
Your third point is kind of invalidated by the fact you default to naming Lightning as your primary fast transaction mechanism, since it operates on Bitcoin which is stuck in the PoW world and probably always will be. It’s major competitor Ethereum is kind of okay these days, but gas prices make it useless for doing any real payments so you’ll end up using some kind of wrapper for that too.
You can’t compare a form of government to a product, so I’m not sure what the democracy argument is about.
And let’s be honest, for mainstream consumers, the Linux desktop and the Fediverse are failures. How many of your real life friends and family have a Lemmy account compared to Facebook or Twitter? Even within my tech nerd bubble most people stick with mainstream services and mainstream operating systems. The best thing to happen to the Linux desktop was Valve picking it up and stuffing it into a console. Android deserves an honorable mention, but they way that got Linux into the mainstream was to hide Linux as much as possible. Twitter started collapsing and Bluesky and fucking Threads ate Mastodon’s lunch. The Fediverse sure has grown, but unless you’re into Linux or computers, you won’t find a Twitter or even Reddit alternative here.
Even still, I myself can get my social media itch scratched by the Fediverse, but I still can’t pay for my groceries through Dogecoin or Lightning or Ethereum.
There are also reasons why I’m not planning on using an iteration of cryptocurrency for real life finances even if such a thing becomes available. Most importantly, the public payment history associated with wallets. It’s not exactly difficult to link wallets to companies once they start operating at larger scales and soon enough you’ll have companies selling your payment history (and wage/employer history) straight off the blockchain. Unfortunately, that’s not really something that can be fixed with the current model.
There’s also the theft problem: if someone steals my bank account details and uses it to transfer all of my money to a foreign country, my bank will lock down my account and probably call me. Steal my wallet seed phrase and everything is gone in an instant, with no recourse. This adds major risk to keeping any significant amount of money in cryptocurrency form, and both enthusiasts and professionals have lost millions upon billions this way.
- Comment on They won't teach you this in Drivers Ed 1 year ago:
To perform an emergency stop (or a full stop in general, I suppose). The picture shows the brake pedal and the clutch pedal being pressed, not the gas and the brakes; you can see the accelerator to the right.
If you don’t free the clutch while coming to a stop, you’ll probably damage your car. This is especially important in scenarios where you can’t reliably shift down fast enough to keep up with the car’s deceleration, for example when doing an emergency stop.
In normal braking scenarios you probably want to keep the clutch engaged until you hit a low RPM (where the engine running without acceleration is trying to accelerate the car, rather than braking on engine power alone). That way, if you need to accelerate to evade, you can do so quickly without connecting the clutch first.
- Comment on They won't teach you this in Drivers Ed 1 year ago:
When coming to a full stop, you may as well, but you could also put the car into neutral for the last bit of braking. Depressing the clutch allows you to quickly get back to driving again (in case you need to respond to traffic around you) but when you’re parking on a driveway you don’t really need that kind of response.
- Comment on They won't teach you this in Drivers Ed 1 year ago:
I think it’s not Lemmy users plagiarising each other, it’s different Lemmy users plagiarising the same Reddit content.
- Comment on Maybe this isn't proper shopping but $18.50 for four veggie burgers, buns, and danish seems like a lot 1 year ago:
For a vegan burger to have a taste that’s close to anything meat-like, you need hemoglobin and a bunch of other proteins that are very expensive to grow from plants. Colouring and consistency can be fixed quite cheaply, but taste is where things become tough. The best taste equivalent I’ve found, is the equivalent in shitty fast food burgers. I don’t think there’s anything close to a properly prepared burger yet, and I don’t think there ever will be, and I think that’s fine.
Vegan food isn’t necessarily more expensive than normal food. In fact, it can be cheaper if you cook right. You can’t just cook a meat meal and substitute a slab of vegan meat, though. Instead, take a recipe that was designed from the ground up to be vegan. There are so many Indian dishes out there that will best the pants of any slab of ground meat, mostly consisting of vegetables and spices. There are pastas and noodles that’ll beat most burgers and are equally easy to put together, all without a single piece of meat.
Vegan meat is a replacement for people who want to quit meat but can’t or don’t want to learn how to cook anything but the things they were used to.
- Comment on An oldie but a goodie 1 year ago:
Contact your server admins, I’m sure they’ll add slurs if you ask
- Comment on An oldie but a goodie 1 year ago:
According to Wiktionary, “fag” as in “cigarette” is probably derived from “fag end”, (from “fagge” meaning “flap”), rather than “faggot”.
“fag” as a slur is derived from “faggot”, of course.
